


Fortunate Ones

by Decepticonsensual



Series: The Festival of Mortilus [7]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: Takes place during the Dying of the Light arc of MTMTE.  In the hours before the DJD have promised to return and execute them, the Rod Squad finds time weighing heavily on their hands.  Drift goes looking for answers.  Megatron goes looking for Drift.  No warnings; slight Drift/Megatron if you squint.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladydragon76](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydragon76/gifts).



> This was a request fic for Ladydragon76 for Halloween, with the prompt "fortune telling". Thank you for the idea! It gave me a chance to write something I've been meaning to try and tackle for some time now: Drift and Megatron's first real conversation after they both defected to the Autobots.

Strange, how waiting for death could make even the most difficult encounter seem like a welcome diversion.  Nothing else could have sent Megatron down that corridor of the one-time Necrobot’s home, in search of the one mech he had never expected to see again.

When Megatron opened the door to the little side-chamber, Deadlock (no, not Deadlock, not anymore) started and reached towards his sword.  That was hardly unusual.  A warrior could not afford to be taken by surprise, and some distant part of Megatron was gratified to see that his protege’s reflexes were still so quick.

What _was_ strange was the way he snatched his hand back before it reached the hilt, and, with what looked like great effort, forced it to lie still at his side.  Instead, the mech sat staring at Megatron.  Every strut was tensed, and yet his expression was a placid study, those ice-blue optics giving nothing away.

For a long time, they simply looked, one or the other occasionally opening his mouth to speak and then shutting it again, glancing away.

That was when Megatron, desperate for any kind of opening, caught sight of the small stack of thin metal sheets lying close to the other mech’s knee.  They each had an intricate pattern engraved across what he realised had to be the back, and the stack was haphazard, as if it was being shuffled when Megatron interrupted.  He nodded towards the cards.  “I never thought you were the type to go in for that - telling the future.”

“Things have changed since you knew me.”

“So I gather.”  He’d meant it to sound rueful - disarming, even - but an acid note crept into Megatron’s voice when he said the words, and earned him a baleful glare.  Megatron sighed and held his hands up.  “I meant no disrespect.”  The glare wasn’t fading, and Megatron contemplated simply backing out of the door and turning around, pretending this entire conversation had never happened.

Instead, he walked into the room and sat down across from his one-time subordinate.  “Will you tell me mine?”

The mech’s expression softened, just a little, from anger to wariness.  “The Lord of the Decepticons doesn’t believe in fate.  He makes his own destiny.”

“As you said.  Things change.”  He didn’t say the rest - that the destiny he thought he’d been crafting had gotten so badly twisted that, occasionally, it was starting to feel as though fate itself was mocking his attempt to break free of it.

Quick, clever dark fingers shuffled the cards, then laid five on the floor between them, four in a circle surrounding the last.  There was a long silence.

“The cards say…”  The mech paused, struggling.  Then his expression set, and Megatron thought he saw a flash of Deadlock again in its determined lines.  “I see two paths before you.  One where you remember who you are, and one where you forget.  But you need to know this - both ways are soaked in blood.”

Megatron was on his feet before he realised it, his processor spinning, his armour abruptly too hot and constricting.  If he could claw it off, he would.  He stumbled towards the door, not really knowing where he was going, just needing to get _away,_ in a place that held no actual hope of escape.

He could feel those optics on him, and there was something so disorientingly familiar about the way he was being watched.  Keenly, and without an ounce of fear.  That was what he always remembered about Deadlock.

Megatron turned back, and drew himself up.  “Interesting - but you are correct.  Ultimately irrelevant, when one can make one’s own destiny.”  He paused, and sought out the optics he’d recognise, whatever their colour, anywhere in the galaxy.  “Thank you… Drift.”


End file.
